


Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet

by romans



Category: Stoker (2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romans/pseuds/romans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Uncle Charlie is exactly what he seems to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet

She comes out of the shower and he's there, sitting on her couch and eating an apple as if she had never shot him though the neck with her hunting rifle. She watches him swallow, remembers the sight of his pulse jumping in his throat, unexpectedly intimate and vulnerable through her scope. 

"Hello, India," Uncle Charlie says. He takes another bite of the apple and his white teeth gleam against the red skin. 

India freezes, dripping water on the floor and clutching her towel around her body, like an animal trying to be still and small and hidden in the grass. Her breathing is shallow and her whole body is as tense and taut as a bowstring, and somehow she's trembling from head to toe despite her terrible stillness. Every molecule and neuron and axon in her body is screaming at her to _run_ , to run far and run fast and keep on running. Her leg muscles tighten of their own accord. She wheels around and dashes blindly for safety.

She's seen this before, seen animals turn stupid and silly when they sense danger in the tall grass. The sudden stillness, the panicked attempts to flee- these are what she waits for. When her prey turns to run, India pulls the trigger. 

She's almost to the window when she hears him drop the apple, a juicy thud on the floor of her apartment, and halfway out of it when strong arms wrap around her waist and pull her back. 

"Where were you going, India?" Charlie asks. He leans against her back, his body heavy and hard against her. She can feel the metal ridges of the windowsill digging into her ribs: they'll leave marks later. She stares out at the courtyard below her. There's no one there: her father chose this apartment because it was private. Normally she likes it, but not tonight. Her uncle breathes against her neck, his chest expanding and contracting against her back. He twines his fingers between hers and hooks his chin over her bare shoulder. 

"Where were you going to go?" he asks. She feels his jaw quirk in a smile and then he turns her around, gently, and closes the window behind her. He's holding on to her elbow and standing over her, close enough to kiss. They've never been this close before. 

"Go get dressed," he says, and lets her go. India walks backwards across the hall, not stopping until her back hits the wood of her bedroom door, and looks at him. He's still smiling.

"I killed you," she says. 

"You missed," he replies.

 

The crocodile heels are standing next to her bed, slender and innocuous in the dying light. India curls her toes and feels the grit of the bare floor stick to her feet. A row of red lines are impressed across her ribcage, just under her breasts, and they sting when she touches them. She closes her eyes and remembers the sight of Uncle Charlie’s blood boiling against the wall, the warm slickness of it against her skin, how still and surprised he had looked. The old-new lust throbs under her skin at the memory. She opens her eyes and looks around the room. It is plain and white, with a wide bed and an antique dresser against the far wall. Uncle Charlie is waiting for her on the other side of the door, his shoes scraping against the sideboard. 

He’s sitting on the couch again when she comes out. His arms are slung along the back of the couch and he has one knee thrown up so that he looks like a model. He makes no move to get up, but his gaze lingers as India closes the space between them on bare feet. There are night sounds filtering through the closed windows, sirens and raised voices and distant music reverberating off of glass and metal and the chirping of crickets underneath it all. Charlie is like a statue, eyes glimmering in the half-light. 

“What do you want?” India asks him. 

Her uncle moves just a little, tilting his head to one side. It’s strangely coy, for a grown man. 

“To be friends,” he says. 

_But I shot you_ she thinks, coming to a stop in front of him. When she reaches out to touch him he bends his head gracefully, letting her rest her fingers in his hair. He’s real. She tugs his head forward, looking for a scar or a mark or any sort of injury. He rests his cheek against her belly, docile as a lamb, and sighs. His neck is whole and unblemished beneath her questing fingers. Except for the dirt under his fingernails Charlie is immaculate. 

India tips his head back to look him in the eye. 

“How did you get here?” she asks. _How are you alive?_

Charlie gives her a lazy, sardonic grin. “It took some digging,” he says. The smile disappears and he reaches up to grasp her hips. She gasps.

“They’ve found the bodies,” he says. “They’re going to come looking for you.” 

She had expected it to happen eventually, but not so soon. She had also expected all of her bodies to stay buried. Charlie is still staring up at her and his eyes remind her of the lions she's seen at the zoo, all patient malice. 

“You’re not human,” she says.

“You’re not like other people,” he counters. She tightens her grip on his hair. 

“What about my mother?” India asks softly. Her rifle is under the bed, just behind her shoes.

“Gone,” Charlie says. “The house is empty.” His fingers tighten on her hips. “You’ll have to go, too,” he says. “They’ll find us soon.” 

“Dinner first?” she says, and he lights up like the sun.

 

Dinner is bloody and subtly flavored, and Charlie hums Donizetti while he cleans up the kitchen. She helps him with the dishes, watching the way their limbs brush in the murky water. Their hands are distorted and strange in the refracted light, elongated fingers like claws, the bones of their wrists monstrous and bulky. 

"I can sleep on the couch," Charlie says quietly. Somehow he's insinuated himself into her life again, easy and smooth. She knows better than her mother, knows what he's trying to do, but she still lets him speak. She's not entirely sure if she can get rid of him. When she meets his gaze his eyes are happy and guileless. 

"No," she says. "Share with me." His smile is wicked this time. The idea of leaving him alone in the living room, curled on the couch like a spider, is unnerving. She doesn't want him out of her sight. 

Charlie looks out of place in her bedroom, balancing on one leg while he takes off his pressed trousers. She studies his body with open curiosity, taking in his long legs, pale and sparsely spattered with hair, the way his underwear conceal nothing, the hint of chest hair under the hem of his t-shirt. He looks perfectly ordinary when he's undressed, and only the phantom feel of his blood on her hands reminds her that her spindly strange uncle is anything but ordinary. He catches her looking and stands still for a moment, letting her take him in. He seems confident, but she knows that his confidence would crumble if she pushed just a little. He wouldn't know what to do with her. 

India undresses quickly, knowing that he's watching her. She puts on her silk nightgown and when she turns around, he's in her bed. His eyes are bright with expectation and she can feel a warming excitement building up inside of her, responding to his gaze. She slides under the white duvet and lets herself sink beneath the covers until they reach her chin. They stay like that for a moment, watching each other, and then uncle Charlie leans down and kisses her briefly. It's businesslike and almost chaste, except for the hand that lingers on her jaw. His breath is warm on her face. She studies him, still wondering what he is, and then his hand moves down to her neck, and wraps around it. 

" _Remember Whip_ ," Charlie breathes, touching his lips to her ear, and when he bites down on her exposed neck she knows what he is and forgets it all at once, borne away on a wave of electrifying pleasure. It comes very easily after that. 

"What are you?" India asks, afterwards. They're curled up together in the bathtub, waiting for the sheets to finish tumbling in the dryer. Ordinarily India would shun so much human contact, but this is different. Charlie doesn't count, somehow. He pushes her wet hair back and presses a kiss to her temple. Her cuticles are dried out and one of them has split open, leaking blood into the bathwater. Charlie takes her hand and kisses that, too, swiping his tongue over the broken skin. 

India interlaces her fingers with Charlie's, and watches the blood trickle down over their entwined hands, and listens to his story. 

The first vampire didn't have fangs, or sleep in a coffin, or bother with the niceties of night or day. It is a very old idea, and very simple: a monster shaped like a human, and drenched in blood. Even the blood is optional. But the hunt is not.

Tomorrow they will board an airplane, and find new hunting grounds. They have world enough, and time to see it, and India intends to see it all.


End file.
